The Indie Informer

Our glowing-eyed heroine with a sugar skull face and spider-like body looks uneasily over the now-peaceful expanse of space. Her companion, a humanoid slot machine named Casino, is the last of her companions left from the once thirteen-person strong gang of outlaws. As Wild Bastards begins, I’m being hunted. And things are about to get worse.

The ragged team sets out to a nearby planet, and the landing page gives me a clue as to my objective. “All planets in this part of the galaxy are jump locked.” it reads. So, if I want to hightail it out of danger, I need to go down to the surface to destroy the machinery keeping me from engaging my warp drive. I’m not alone when I land.

Explosions aren’t quiet affairs, and my necessary destruction job draws the attention of a Chastener — someone who follows a powerful figure the gun-toting baddie calls Master Chaste. He is also nice enough to let me know that his master doesn’t appreciate folks blowing up his jump locks. The battle is on.

Unfortunately, Casino got “scattered” when we beamed down, effectively placing him across the planet map that now rolls out before me. In my GDC preview for Wild Bastards, I explained a little of how the game splits its time between a space map, the cockpit, a planet map, and FPS arenas. On-world, a series of branching paths stretch out before me, but I only have so much movement. This means it will take multiple turns to collect my lost partner, fight through the roadblocks, and reach the technological staircase that will get me safely back to the ship.

After a number of turns, a dangerous villain will appear, but let’s not put the cart before the horse. I have to make it safely through the world before even thinking about flying away. My first impulse is to grab Casino. A fighting counterpart is crucial in these wild wastes for a lot of reasons.

First, having two people on-planet lets me use both characters to explore more of the world. Each have their own movement, allowing one to go and loot a little bit while the other treks to the staircase. All the outlaws under my control get beamed up when anyone triggers the machine. That gives me a lot of much-apreciated options.

However, it is safer to bunch my outlaws together. I can group two of my characters into a squad, and they will take on any encounter side-by-side. This is mostly helpful in combat where falling means failure. Choosing to engage the enemy on a roadblock throws me into a 3D, first-person view. The arena around me is relatively small, but it’s populated with places to hide, spots to take cover, and, of course, people trying to kill me.

The UI at the top of the screen keeps count of how many enemies surround me, and watching it tick down as I pick off my foes is very satisfying. I usually start these encounters with Spider Rosa, my arachnid heroine. Her multiple limbs allow her to hold and reload a pair of pistols with ease. She also has a bit more range and is an excellent choice for a stealthier approach. If the heat is on to me, I have a special ability I can trigger after collecting juice around the map. It leaves a shadow image of Spider Rosa to draw the anger of hostile combatants while I sneak around the side to take them down.

At any point in combat, I can switch to the other member of my squad. Sometimes I do this because my main fighter has lost a lot of health, sometimes it’s because the time for sneaking around has passed. Casino boasts a three-shot shotgun that works spectacularly at close range. It’s slow to reload, however, which is why I typically only switch to the mechanical gunner when the enemy’s numbers are running low. Another good reason to call him into battle concerns his unique ability. Aptly called Roulette, Casino’s special kills one enemy at random. If you only have one baddie left and you don’t know where they are, calling on his powers finishes a match quickly.

But though I clear this world’s map with ease, luck is against me. A star ship captained by Chaste’s youngest son, McNeil, makes short work of my empty vessel. I have nowhere to run. It looks like the end. Until a legend enters the fray.

The Drifter is a ship with a will of its own, and it appears in my desperate hour of need. I get Spider Rosa and Casino into the ship and jump out of death’s clutches with no hesitation. The ship is in control and its display lets me know everything I need to about the next sector I’m heading to — including the fact that one of my lost outlaws, Smoky, lies in his final rest on one of the planets.

This is where the space map comes in, I find myself looking at another branching series of decisions. Heading to the local Infamy merchant to pick up rewards for the currency I accrue when killing Chasteners might cut me off from picking up a potion that grants me more movement on-planet. Each path-not-traveled changes my chances of success. I seem to choose wisely picking my way through this sector because I snatch Smoky — a flaming skeleton — from death itself with the help of The Drifter’s unexpected resurrection powers.

I have a way forward now in Wild Bastards, but I’m nowhere near seeing where the path will end. I can not wait to soar through the galaxy taking on the Chasteners and reanimating my crew of space cowboys on September 12.